AI Research Engineer - Robotics
Primary stack
Job description
About the Position
AI Research Engineer - Robotics
Barcelona, Spain; Paris, France
About the Company
Helsing is a defence AI company dedicated to protecting democracies. Our mission is to achieve technological leadership, ensuring open societies can make sovereign decisions and control their ethical standards. We are a team of engineers, AI specialists, and programme managers committed to solving complex problems. We embrace an open and transparent culture that encourages healthy debates on the use of technology in defence.
Responsibilities
- Design, train, and deploy RL-based controllers for robots in complex, unstructured, and dynamic environments.
- Develop AI-based capabilities that allow machines to perceive and assist human decision-making.
- Ensure the full pipeline from simulation to deployment is robust, efficient, and ready for real-world operation under tight hardware constraints.
Requirements
- MSc or PhD in Robotics, Machine Learning, Control Engineering, or a related field with a strong focus on reinforcement learning and robot control.
- Hands-on experience training and deploying RL-based controllers on real robotic hardware.
- Deep familiarity with modern RL techniques for continuous control, including model-free methods, model-based RL, hierarchical RL, sim-to-real transfer strategies, domain randomisation, and curriculum learning.
- Solid understanding of robot dynamics, kinematics, and classical control theory.
- Proficiency in building and working with physics-based simulators.
- Solid software engineering skills, writing clean and well-structured code in Python, Rust, or modern C++.
- Excellent communication skills and the ability to report and present research findings clearly and efficiently.
Nice to Have
- PhD in Robotics, Reinforcement Learning, Control Engineering, or related fields, with publications in top-tier venues.
- Experience developing controllers for highly dynamic robotic systems.
- Experience with vision-based perception for robotics control.
- Familiarity with low-level motor control interfaces and real-time embedded systems constraints.
- Experience with online adaptation and meta-learning techniques.
- Experience with sensor fusion to inform and enhance learned control policies.
We Offer
- Competitive salary and VSOP options.
- Relocation support: up to €2,500 and 4 weeks temporary accommodation.
- Learning: €500/£450 yearly allowance.
- Health & wellness: gym membership and mental health support (Nilo.health).
- Social: regular company events and monthly social allowances.
- Enhanced parental leave: 22 weeks fully paid for primary caregivers & 6 weeks for secondary caregivers.
- Family support: 5 days of paid family emergency leave, 100% remote work option during pregnancy and phased return to work.
These are the core benefits across all locations, there may be additional benefits in certain locations.
Join Helsing
At Helsing, you'll be directly contributing to the protection of democratic countries while balancing ethical and geopolitical concerns. Our work is unique, operating in a domain with highly unusual technical requirements and constraints, where robustness, safety, and ethical considerations are vital. We encourage healthy, proactive, and diverse debate internally about what we do and how we choose to do it. Teams and individual engineers are trusted to practise responsible autonomy and critical thinking, focusing on outcomes, not conformity.
Helsing is an Equal Opportunity Employer
We are committed to equal employment opportunity regardless of race, religion, sexual orientation, age, marital status, disability, or gender identity. Please do not submit personal data revealing racial or ethnic origin, political opinions, religious or philosophical beliefs, trade union membership, data concerning your health, or data concerning your sexual orientation.
For more information on Helsing's Candidate Privacy and Confidentiality Regime, please visit here.
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